Giving out flyers to promote your website?

I have purchased a gig through Fiverr paying someone to print and pass out flyers, but without much success. In fact, I'm not even sure if the person I paid actually passed out the flyers... lol. Live and learn.

Even if they did, I believe that it will depend on your niche as to whether this method of marketing will be effective.

Perhaps others have had a better experience. I personally just don't have the time (unless I drag my twins around town with me... not so convenient).

The only time I ever made money on flyers was promoting a cpa offer for a companies gift cards, then printed them myself and distributed them at one of our local Universities. Time intensive, but quick cash I could then put into another project. I have only done this once, but this thread has me thinking about doing it again :-)

This is actually one of my plans for marketing of my new local website. I will print small flyers, cards with the web link and call to action and distribute them wherever I can. It is highly competitive niche online, but I believe due to it's current nature it will draw in even folk from the street. We shall see.

I cant say I have done it, though it would certainly be an expensive route. Then again, it would be a better method of promotion than competing online like LetsGoViral said. Please share any experiences you may have.

If you check the Offline Forum here, there are some great threads concerning doing this. A few of the Warriors in there have had great success with it, and they've shared a lot of tips on the right (and wrong) ways to do it.

-- j

I would think news ad will perform better than flyers. My rationale: I pay attention to interesting ad in newspaper but hardly accept or look at flyers distributed on street.

Rgds,
Brian Lim

In my opinion (and that is all this is) flyers can be a very good ad method when used at the right time with the right product/service.

If you have a new local service they can be quite effective in a localized area. If you have a new online site it will need to be offering something truly unique and targeting a certain group. Flyers could then be passed out to this specific target group.

As a general advertising source for an average website I think it would be a waste of time and resources.

This is interesting, in a busy city landscape where someone is just standing in a crowd, handing out an advertisement, I would say the first thing that would cross my mind is what are the chances that this is going to actually interest the person being offered an opportunity to view the advertisement?

Hit or Miss? I think you could logically compare this to say internet traffic where the user is not targeted but just general traffic, (probably useless as a method of developing consumer activity) I think myself about walking down a busy street, someone is standing there who probably does not want to be there.

They are handing out advertising they probably do not understand nor are really interested in, effective use of money?

Not really... Now you might find that in some small measure you might get a little digital bump in traffic, but I believe it would all depend on targeting...

If your interested in reaching coffee drinkers, with a new website targeted to coffee consumers then have someone stand near a star-bucks and pass out advertising options.

Now your in an area where you can actually do some good.

Flyers to me are not something you should outsource, do it yourself. One you can't track results. Second, you cant control the quality of the delivery of the flyers.

Well that's what I think about outsourcing flyers.

Handing out flyers is a good marketing strategy for the right offer but it won't work for every one.

While a CPA zip offer for a gift card might work, I'm sure an offer for web design would not.

This is one of the biggest problems in IM/OM for marketers is that they know what to sell to make money, how to promote an offer, but they don't know they not all marketing methods are good for all offers.

Just as you wouldn't use a Craigslist ad to promote a CPA offer (you shouldn't, it's blackhat), you wouldn't use flyers to get leads for emergency plumbing services.

You may get some responses but it won't be as good as an effective, researched campaign.

So, my rambling point/question is... for what offer are you distributing flyers?

Handing out flyers basically translates into capturing eyeballs, of which the same rules applies when promoting online. If your flyers are handed out to an untargeted audience at random, then you may have to distribute at least a few hundred, if not a thousand or more to get a lead / sale. If you however target your audience, and pre-qualify your audience (talk to them, give them your pitch, and see if they "beg" you for a flyer) then you will have better luck getting a return on your time, energy and funds.

Here is the front side of the flyer I am posting in residential areas

http://bit.ly/Ynxokd

I target the lower income areas of town. Welfare housing converts very well for this niche.

The fact I am advertising web design is a mere footnote. Sometimes I target houses which are home to small businesses so one or two leads on a website job would be nice, but not that important. I am more interested in building a larger following for the fast food directory.

One time I purchased a bunch of signs and put them all around town, they said something along the lines of

cash in With Solar Energy with a simple website address, then sent directly to some solar powered site actually generated a few thousand in sales until someone stole all the signs

Yeah i have. I've created flyers and distributed them along with my business cards with the other members of my local chamber of commerce. I've found that it's very effective when you offer something for free, and when you keep the sales copy on the flyer (and business card) short.

I have personally done it on 3 different occasions and with a Great Success.
Once during last year Easter Holidays, then Queens Diamond Jubilee Celebrations and Then During Olympic times. [on all three occasions in London]

I had 2 threads in Offline Marketing on this forum, One is here for you to have an idea on how I did it.

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...-campaign.html

I still have a Big Plan to do it this Christmas in big cities across UK on a very large scale... wish me luck with it..

Try running an Ad in a local newspaper that appeals to the general crowd.

I think that giving out flyers in a right place is a good idea. I have tried sending out flyers and gain prospects and clients. There are circumstances that the people we have given out may refer you to their friends who is looking for your product.

Hope this helps!

Yes, I have put them in places like laundromats, at schools and around a university. I had absolutely no results other than some people taking them down or posting their own flyers. I handed out flyers to a very targeted audience for an event my family and I held and amazingly there was almost no response. I think my results had a lot to do with the demographics and local economy, but nonetheless, I won't be rushing to do it again any time soon.

I am really interested to distribute 10k flayers to expand my business. This thread has a lot of information that will help me a lot. Thanks Guys.

There are services in my town who for a fee will distribute flyers, but I'm very selective about not posting my flyers to the homes of the elderly, for instance. If I pay for 1000 flyers to be delivered in such-and-such area, that is exactly what will happen regardless of the types of homes.

Doing it myself means I find out first hand what the problems are with this type of marketing, so that if I ever DO outsource the task, I know what I want doing before I pay for it.

Like one of the other posters said in this thread - unless someone handing out flyers is well paid or well incentivized, they are unlikely to care about your website's success. They are not seeing the bigger picture. Their attitude is "I need to get rid of these flyers."